Bent Spoon Award
Nominations for 2009
Please use this button to add your favourite to the list (or to add your support for something already here). If you are going to nominate someone or something, please tell us why, or at least give a hint. We are not psychic, so just nominating someone is not enough. Also, please don't nominate people who do their woo outside Australia, even if they appear on Australian television doing it. The Bent Spoon is for local heroes only.
The nominations so far:
Nominee: Truth Movement AustraliaNominated by: Marius Vanderlubbe
Date: 28/06/2009
I wish to nominate this nest of vipers. Its all there. Every paranoid delusion you could shake a stick at. You will not find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. I really thought that we as a nation were not hosts to such lunacy as these cretin spout. Pure, unadulterated paranoid delusion.
URL: http://www.truthmovementaustralia.com.au/forum/
Nominee: Senator Stephen FieldingNominated by: David Kay
Date: 11/06/2009
Fielding claims that his "training as an engineer" has taught him to always look at both sides of an argument. A fine-sounding sentiment, indeed. Until you think about it. Arguments between my young children have two sides: "He started it!" and "No! She did!" But arguments in which people actually engage their brain, like, say, arguments about climate change, have many sides. Will the senator personally consider them all? Will he replicate all the studies and modelling of the past decades? How then, exactly, is he planning to evaluate all the conflicting claims?
Perhaps Fielding's training as a stooge for Hillsong gives him undue empathy for the stooges of other profit-making ventures. Or perhaps he's just an imbecile.
Nominee: Senator Stephen FieldingNominated by: Eduard Winkler
Date: 9/06/2009
For being a Climate Change Idiot.
Nominee: "Dr" Jennifer Barham-FloreaniNominated by: Guy Curtis
Date: 2/06/2009
I am writing to nominate Dr Jennifer Barham-Floreani, a Victorian Chiropractor for the 2009 Bent Spoon Award. On her blog "Dr Jennifer" states that she does not support vaccination and recommends chiropractic adjustments as a protective measure for unvaccinated children (http://www.welladjustedbabies.com/blog/?p=115). This comes from a "health professional" who claims on her site to have "recently awarded both Australian Chiropractor of the Year and Victorian Chiropractor of the Year" (http://www.welladjustedbabies.com/about.php). Her book "Well Adjusted Babies" contains a chapter entitled "Why should newborn babies be checked for nerve irritation by chiropractors?", I shudder to think of a chiropractor twisting a baby's spine, but I'm unwilling to pay "Dr Jennifer" any money for her book to find out what it actually contains.
I think Barham-Floreani's statements concerning vaccination and chiropractic alone are sufficient for her to be a strong contender for this year's bent spoon.
Nominee: Australian SkepticsNominated by: Steven Guy
Date: 25/05/2009
I nominate the Australian Skeptics for their tacit defence of Ian Plimer's rather irrational anti-global warming book.
Nominee: Ian PlimerNominated by: Steven Guy
Date: 25/05/2009
I nominate Ian Plimer for his hysterical and silly book, "Heaven And Earth", and, I dare say, many other Skeptics would love to vote for him in this year's Bent Spoon Awards. Don't tell me that the Australian Skeptics are becoming pusillanimous, just because someone who has done some service against the folly that is Creationism in the past is regarded as exempt?
Many people in the scientific world would be happy to give Plimer a "bronx cheer" for his book. Why not give us a chance, too?
Nominee: Meryl Dorey - Australian Vaccination NetworkNominated by: Maureen Gaynor
Date: 8/05/2009
I would like to nominate Meryl Dorey for this anti-vaccination rant on her website. She actually talks about a child who need to undergo a detoxification process following vaccination. I guess he must’ve been born without a liver.
URL: http://nocompulsoryvaccination.blogspot.com/2009/05/channel-7-sunday-night-program-study-in.html
Editor's comment: I was in the audience for this show.I had to take a bath in Dettol afterwards after sitting near some AVN members.
Nominee: Jodiann PoyntonNominated by: Jane Curtain
Date: 14/03/2009
I’d like to nominate Jodiann Poynton for publically declaring that her eight-year-old daughter, Emily, has psychic powers and can communicate with the dead and with guardian angels.
See the clip from “Today Tonight”.
This is child exploitation at its worst! The mother makes money off many unsuspecting souls. Unbelievable! The poor, poor child.
Of course, because of her “magic”, Emily can’t attend school. Funny that.
Dr Krissy Wilson was the voice of reason in the “A Current Affair” clip. Best regards, Jane.
URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsYNIMccf4k
Nominee: Michael Connolly, Dream time expertNominated by: Robert Freke
Date: 6/03/2009
For suggesting that Aboriginal people were around to see ancestors of current kangaroos, 15 million years ago.
"Indigenous expert Michael Connolly says he has no doubt Aboriginal people were around to see the species."
URL: http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/12/13/2117940.htm
Nominee: Today TonightNominated by: Geoff Andrews
Date: 1/03/2009
I would like to second the nomination of channel 7 for the spoon award. However I suppose we should wait until the end of the year in case the predictions are correct and we have been proved wrong. However so far her score is 2 correct (Kate Winslet and Slumdog Millionaire ) and 1 wrong (Micky Rourke). She seems to have followed the betting on her predictions on the Oscars but came a cropper when the favourite for best actor didn't win.
Nominee: Bundaberg NewsmailNominated by: David Harding Smith
Date: 18/02/2009
The Bundaberg Newsmail today (18th Feb 2009) for its gushing praise by its journalist on its "health" page for a local naturopath using his "Quantum biofeedback" SCIO machine. A hard-hitting piece of investigative journalism - Not!
URL: http://www.ratbags.com/rsoles/comment/qxci.htm
Editor's comment: It's not a new scam, but it changes its name occasionally. See the URL for some history
Nominee: Jonathan KingNominated by: John Morgan
Date: 17/02/2009
He did an article in The Age where he said the bushfires were because we declared war on the environment so the environment is fighting back
Nominee: Catch The Fire MinistriesNominated by: Peter Bowditch
Date: 10/02/2009
For announcing that the bushfires in Victoria which killed just under 200 people were a punishment from God because abortion had been effectively decriminalised in that state.
Nominee: Peter SingerNominated by: John Morgan
Date: 8/02/2009
Peter Singer just wrote a book called The Life You Can Save, where he is so critical of the average worker for spend money every day on things like newspaper & coffee yes he is a professor @ Princeton University.
Nominee: SBS TelevisionNominated by: John Morgan
Date: 7/02/2009
I nominate SBS for putting an ad on that makes people panic to become vegetarian & uses scare tactics. the website is called Askmorenow.com.au
URL: http://Askmorenow.com.au
Nominee: Anonymous woowoo believerNominated by: Sera Pal
Date: 1/02/2009
So I was with my friend Dahli, bonafide Skeptic, bless her soul (if she had one).
We were in the Veg out Garden in St Kilda, Melbourne - and we over heard this guy tell a bunch of women, that he cured his Sty in his EYE - with a gold Ring.
YES PEOPLE!! A STY IN HIS EYE, with his GOLDEN RING. Wait it get's better - All the women swooned at his amazing revelation. He then said, that you had to WARM UP THE GOLD, so that it had warm "GOLDEN ENERGY"
I have heard some bullshit, but Oh my Dog. Me and Dahli just looked at eachother, both sighed and and then cracked up laughing, before paying for our vegalicious goods and leaving with a smirk.
Decorum Please. That's all I have to say, I'm not sure if it's a common myth, but it HAS To be a myth. I think this guys needs to stick his ENERGY UP HIS GOLDEN RING BEFORE THE SKY TURNS INTO A PIE!
Ha ha ha. Good joke.
Editor's comment: It's a bit difficult to give a prize to some anonymous nitwit, but in any case my grandmother told me this one several centuries ago and when she spoke you listened. Or else.
Nominee: Today TonightNominated by: Alan Needham
Date: 28/01/2009
On 26thJanuary at 6.30pm, Channel 7 broadcast an interview with Stacey Demarco, introduced as “Australia’s Number 1 Psychic”, but who quickly assured us she was actually just a witch with psychic powers. (I thought the mantle of “Number 1 Psychic”had fallen on that woman who failed to find what she was looking for on six out of seven occasions in “The One”, but I digress.) Stacey Demarco made the following “psychic” predictions for 2009:
1. There will be a major breach of security, involving an attempt on the lives of Barack Obama and his wife.
2. Kevin Rudd will have serious heart problems that could be fatal.
3. Julia Gillard will be Australia’s first woman prime minister (whether in 2009 or not was not made clear).
4. Malcolm Turnbull will never be prime minister (perhaps just thrown in to make us relax).
5. Real estate values will stop falling in 6 months and will rise in 2010.
6. August 2009 will be the economic low point of the current woes.
7. Best actor at the Oscars will be Mickey Rourke (not sure of the spelling – I know more about the far side of the moon thanI do about film stars!)
8. Best actress will be Kate Winslett.
9. Best film will be Slum Dog Millionaires.
Of these, predictions 2,7,8 and 9 are perhaps the bravest. 1,3 and 4 have been predicted by many political commentators without psychic powers, and 5 and 6 are so subject to interpretation and location as to be almost certain to happen somewhere.
On checking the Channel 7 web site today, I found no reference to this interview (I wanted to check that I wrote her predictions down correctly) and there was no indication on the programme itself that her predictions will be revisited at the end of the year. Channel 7 has done its usual fine job of promoting its favourite witch doctors in a totally uncritical –indeed, hugely supportive –fashion, and gives every indication of walking away from any possible adverse outcome. If all (or some?) predictions come true, however, you’ll need ear plugs to muffle the trumpets.
Nominee: Elle McPhersonNominated by: Matthew Jones
Date: 26/01/2009
In the Sunday Age magazine this weekend (and probably also in the SMH) Elle McPherson has dipped her (admittedly, genetically superior) toe into acupuncture, iridology, 'The Healing Code', chi balancing, and Kundalini and Bikram yoga.
Us mere mortals are bound to look at the amazing tremendousness of Ms McPherson and create a causal link between the CAM she recommends and the apparent bodily perfection she inhabits.
Unfortunately, for all her aesthetic qualities, her brain is apparently mush. This level of devotion to Woo cannot go unchallenged, particularly as she is subjecting her kids to acupuncture - as ''a conscious parent'.
Please disguise the Bent Spoon Award in a box of Chi Balancing Lemon Chinese tea, so it can be delivered express to Elle.
Nominee: Nivea DNAge Skin CreamNominated by: Heath
Date: 21/01/2009
I'd like to nominate Nivea's DNAge skin cream for a Bent Spoon. In their commercials they make all the usual claims about making you look X years younger in Y days. It's also a sunscreen. But the real kicker is they claim the cream actually changes your DNA to make you look younger. They have technical looking animations so it must be true, right?
Nominee: Senator Stephen ConroyNominated by: Michelle Newton-Greene
Date: 21/01/2009
I would like to nominate Senator Stephen Michael Conroy, Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, for pandering to fundamentalistfruit-loops (i.e. Senator Steve Fielding, he of that illustrious doyen of Victorian sensibility, The Family FirstParty) and threatening to enshrine in legislation The Great Australian Firewall. Believing inpunishing the many instead of disciplining the few, Senator Conroy sees technology as a Big Scary Thing, and thereforemust be legislated to the nth degree. And, as God himself (or Family First anyway) have claimed, looking at rude things on the Internet will make us all go blind. Since rude things seem to cover porn, politics and personal opinions, and that we have no clear definition of what sites will actually be banned, it seems to me a colossalwaste of tax payer’s money and an abuse of freedom in order to pander to the whims of a religious loonand breeders who cannot discipline their spawn. Insteadof actually spending money on funding the Federal Police so they can do their job effectively, Senator “Luddite”Conroy would rather call all Internet users pedophilesand take the simplistic band-aid solution. I cannot believe this man is our Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy –he is so far behind the (magic)eight ball that he has no concept of how the Internet actually works. He probably still lives under the delusion that “Google”is “goggle”spelt incorrectly and that the Ethernetis what you use to catch the Ether Bunny.
There, I feel so much better now. I just hope Australian Skeptics isn’t on the Secret Banned List –too much of that opinion stuff happening here, you know. One could go blind reading this stuff…
Editor's comment: A test with one of the free filters offered by the previous government showed that about half the pages on the Australian Skeptics web site were blocked for inappropriate content. Yes, it was a mystery to us as well.
Nominee: Australian Yowie Research GroupNominated by: Rob Maguire
Date: 15/01/2009
I have recently been banished from the Australian Yowie Research website forum (along with another member ) who had proclaimed ourselves as skeptics. I should say here that we were skeptics within the forum. We were not representing ourselves as members of the Australian Skeptics, as I am not a member of your organisation (yet…).
In any case, I would very much like to nominate the Australian Yowie Research group/website for the bent spoon award, noting that they were previously nominated in 2001.
I highly recommend that someone from the Australian Skeptics review the Yowie discussion forum and in particular read the recent threads starting with ‘Dean vs Yowie’, where Dean Harrison purports to have been physically thrown 12 feet through the air by a yowie early in the new year.
Despite constant requests from many members of the forum no evidence has yet been shown, except for some photos of bruising to Dean’s body.
The reaction to these threads of conversation was to have myself and another skeptic permanently banished from the forum…
Ah well. I’ll look more into the Australian Skeptics and determine whether I would like to be active in my opinions and consider joining.
Nominee: Nicole KidmanNominated by: Peter Bowditch
Date: 3/01/2009
Nic gets a nomination for her response to the prediction that playing the didge might make her barren. She said that there might be something to it because she had never been able to become pregnant until after she had swum in some sacred creek which had traditional fertility powers.
Nominee: Various aboriginal loonsNominated by: Peter Bowditch
Date: 3/01/2009
I would like to nominate the several self-appointed guardians of Aboriginal sprituality who rushed to the media with predictions that Nicole Kidman would be rendered sterile because she dared to play a didgeridoo. A secondary nomination goes to the gullible and politically correct members of the fourth estate who didn't tell the fools to run away and stop bothering the grown-ups.
Nicole gets her own individual nomintaion for her response.
Nominee: ABC Radio - Annet Shun WahNominated by: Tony Britt-Lewis
Date: 30/12/2008
Hi There, here's a very late 2008 entry for the 2009 Bent Spoon awards.
I feel compelled to nominate our national radio broadcaster, ABC 702 and announcer Annette Shun Wah for her cringe worthy interview ( Tuesday, 30/12/08 ) with Australia's foremost feng shui expert, Elizabeth Wiggens, whose establishment was plugged twice during the interview at our expense. If you thought times were tough because of America's non-existent banking regulations, think again. Simply move your newly installed fish tank to another location if profits are plummeting. It's common sense! Stairs too close to the front door in that new house you're after? You're in luck, you may not have to rebuild the entrance if your strategically placed plants or pictures encourage those positive energies up the stairs. Phew! And look out if you were'nt born in an ox year, there could be some tough energies coming your way early next year. This one particularly concerns me. Apparently, I was born in a rabbit year.
No critical questioning either except for one Dorothy Dixer about the"naysayers" ( I think she meant rational people ) who think its all just superstition. Three cheers for tax payers money well spent.
Editor's comment: You just beat me to it! I had to turn off when the guest referred to the five elements - earth, air, fire, water and wood. To make matters worse the trash didn't just go to a Sydney audience on ABC 702 - it was state-wide.
Nominee: Channel 7Nominated by: John Morgan
Date: 23/12/2008
I nominate channel 7 for making a doco callled life after people
URL: http://www.throng.com.au/life-after-people
Nominee: Pacific Islander Christian Churches of CampbelltownNominated by: Michael Adams
Date: 21/12/2008
I would like to nominate the Pacific Islander Christian Churches of Campbelltown for the Bent Spoon Award for encouraging children and teenagers to believe that they are the victims of supernatural forces. As a teacher at a local public high school I have witnessed the detrimental effect these “teachings” have on impressionable young people. I would like to give a few examples. Last month a Year 8 student drew a picture of a fairy in one of her work books. A fair consequence may have been a lunch detention for not doing her work, but the consequences for this seemingly innocuous action were far more severe. The student sitting next to her (an attendee one of the Islander Churches) started to shake, cry and scream, complaining that the spirit of the fairy had risen out of the picture and possessed her. Her two friends (also church goers) decided to free her from the demonic spirit by bashing the poor girl who had drawn the picture (the injuries resulted in an ambulance being called). The school, naturally, suspended the two girls who had used violence and the girl who claimed to be possessed for inciting the violence. We were most surprised when the parents of two of the girls not only defended their children and demanded the school apologise for suspending them, but also demanded to know why we hadn’t suspended the girl who drew the fairy for bringing evil into the classroom. The mother of the third girl was more reasonable saying that she, “didn’t believe in that Samoan crap,” and acknowledging that her daughter had just been looking for an excuse to hit someone. The “demonic possession” excuse has also been used to justify calling the Deputy a “F...ing Faggot!” after evil had been let into the school in the form of a theatre troop performing a play called Taboo, and vandalism after children had been exposed to the evil represented by Harry Potter. Students have also been unable to complete exams, assessment tasks and in one case had to miss school for three terms because they were the victims of demonic curses. Teachers have been threatened and abused by parents for teaching fantasy or exploring social realism in English, for teaching evolution in Science, and for our anti-homophobia policies – and this is at a public school. These churches need to be held to account for the effect of their superstitious nonsense on these young people. (I would be more specific but have to respect the confidentiality of the students)
Nominee: Gene Ray and Time Cube.Nominated by: Benedict Tan
Date: 19/12/2008
The web site says it all.
URL: http://www.timecube.com
Editor's comment: Two strikes against Gene as a Bent Spoon candidate - he doesn't do his work in Australia and he has been a famous netloon for many years.
Nominee: University of QueenslandNominated by: Peter Arnold
Date: 4/11/2008
Offering a postgraduate course for doctors - Certificate in Integrative Medicine. What makes this travesty even worse is that there is an emphasis on "Alternative Evidence Based Therapies". I'm sorry - the words "alternative" and "evidence based" cannot logically be used on the same page.
URL: http://healthcert.com.au/events_cim_detail.htm
